Originally Posted by
kid-glove
His hands disarming the bomb. And him living closer to the point of no return. Chasing after ideals & emotional plane, that doesn't exist, without getting all righteous & personal. Living through moments of danger. Or rather, 'living' itself.
Back in civilian life, the mundane choices of the stacked & tinned atmosphere in the vast supermarkets (Where does this stack up to the transcendental sips in trenches of the desert off the cold-blooded sniper, each loaded with meaning), close up of his hands cleaning up the leaves in roof trench. (How I wish they didn't have that terrible exposition, ala 'toys' to his child, in retrospect one assumes this was to address jury members of the academy)
The final montage, back in action. The machismo-matic vanity in his eyes.
It's a well made film. But how much of it is editing , trial & error? And is it really worthy of its attention, for what is essentially a relatively simplistic point. A point made in past (admittedly in the 'passing') by many a war movie.
On flip side, you have Redacted, which is politically bold (unlike HL), but mess of a film. One would assume De Palma meant it to be that way for two thirds of it, the rest would be incompetence/senility.